Oracle, Meta, Amazon Lead Layoff Wave
San Francisco's tech sector is seeing a new wave of layoffs, with Oracle planning to cut 20,000-30,000 jobs (up to 18% of its workforce) due to AI infrastructure costs. Meta and Amazon are also leading large-scale workforce reductions. This reflects a paradox: AI creates new markets but requires costly infrastructure, forcing even giants to restructure.
Oracle's potential layoffs could affect up to 30,000 employees, nearly 18% of its workforce. Investment bank TD Cowen estimates this could free up $8-10 billion in cash flow. The cuts are reportedly due to a cash crunch caused by Oracle's massive AI data center expansion, including a $300 billion partnership with OpenAI. Oracle's stock has dropped 54% since September 2025, reflecting investor wariness about massive AI spending. To fund these expansions, Oracle may raise $45-50 billion through debt and equity in 2026. They are also considering selling their healthcare unit, Cerner, acquired for $28.3 billion in 2022. Amazon's layoffs include at least 100 jobs in its robotics division, adding to the 16,000 corporate roles cut in January. Since late 2022, Amazon has eliminated over 57,000 corporate roles. Amazon is shifting away from older warehouse architecture towards a new modular platform called Orbital, designed for smaller, same-day warehouses. Meta is also restructuring, with January 2026 seeing layoffs in its Reality Labs division as the company shifts focus to AI. While early 2025 saw Meta cutting 5% of its workforce based on performance, the company has stated that they will not be doing that, at least for 2026. Layoffs.fyi reports that over 35,000 tech employees have lost their jobs across nearly 50 companies in the first few months of 2026.
